Tis the season for predictions

posted at 4:00 pm on December 31, 2011 by Jazz Shaw

No end of the year political shindig would be complete without pundits and prophets gazing into the chicken entrails and letting us know what we should expect in the year to come. Given the fact that we so rarely see end of the year, “Look how well I did last December” articles, you might not want to invest too heavily based on these. But a quick look around should provide us with some amusement if nothing else.
Over at The Sun Journal in Maine, self styled psychic Vicki Monroe was asked to take a crack at the task. Vicki is described as someone who, “has been seeing spirits for most of her life. She ignored them for years, until one day she embraced her psychic side.” Her thoughts:

* Obama will win re-election. Others won’t.

“They’re saying in the election what’s going to surprise many is that a lot of those Republicans that were voted in … will be voted out,” Monroe said.

* The American economy will improve, and job security will increase.

* Moods will improve, both nationally and worldwide.

“Everything is going to change. Basically on a global scale we will start looking at things in a positive way,” Monroe said. “What the Mayans said as the end of the world is the end of the world as (far as) nations having to beat each other (to be) No. 1.”

So… OK then! Moving along, we have Kara Miller at the Boston Globe checking in. She takes a different approach, predicting that Mitt Romney will win not only the GOP nomination, but the presidency. And then she provides the mechanism for how he defeats Obama, which is where things get a little weird.

Massachusetts will become the central issue in the 2012 campaign. Not to be parochial (OK, maybe a little), I believe that this state will prove to be Romney’s greatest hurdle and greatest asset.

Right now, Massachusetts health care features prominently in Republican attacks on Romney, but if the former Governor can nab the nomination, his Massachusetts experience could prove to be a tremendous strength. (“I know how to get both sides of the aisle to work together; heck, I was governor of Massachusetts!”)

Wouldn’t it be ironic if Massachusetts propelled Mitt Romney to the presidency? I wouldn’t rule it out.

So… that happened. James Poulos checks in at The Daily Caller with some tongue in cheek predictions. He too feels that Mitt Romney will be the nominee and the next president, but his foresight about the VP nominee may come as a shock.

In a surprise, Romney will turn for his running mate to David Petraeus, and Petraeus will accept. Obama’s foreign policy advantage will be gone. Panic over the stunning whiteness and maleness of the ticket will prove misguided; in every other way Petraeus is everything Romney is not. Marco Rubio makes Republicans feel great about themselves, but Petraeus will make Americans feel like the adult has finally walked into the room. The day the first Romney/Petraeus bumper stickers go out will be the last time anyone ever mentions Condoleezza Rice.

Back to the other side of the aisle, The Daily Beast has a collection of prognosticators offering up their vision of things to come. We’ll start with a couple items from Michael Tomasky:

3. Bashar al-Assad will fall. The Free Syrian Army will march triumphantly into Damascus in March. More incredibly still, everything will go swimmingly! Syria will become a more-or-less functioning democracy within the year. Hizbullah members will start cashing in their 401K’s.

5. The Supreme Court will uphold the Affordable Care Act on a 5-4 vote, but here’s the twist: Kennedy will vote against it, and Scalia will vote for it! Scalia’s vote to uphold, consistent with his previous commerce-clause thinking, will mute a lot of the howling, and health care won’t be much of a campaign issue.

9. Obama wins reelection fairly easily; Democrats hold the Senate, Republicans hold the House, but the margins of majority narrow in both chambers.

And these stunners from Paul Begala:

1. Herman Cain will get a contract with Fox News Channel. Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich will not.

2. A third-party candidate will get more than 7 percent of the popular vote for president.

3. John Boehner will be toppled from his post as speaker before the 2012 elections.

4. Democrats will re-take the House, hold the Senate and Obama will be reelected; a stunning rebuke of the Tea Party.

There’s more at each of the links, so have fun with them. And since I don’t suffer from the curse of embarrassment when proven wrong, (it wears off after a few decades of being so wrong so often) allow me to pitch a few of my own. (Some serious, some not so much.) Feel free to add yours.

1. Mitt Romney effectively wraps up the nomination by the second week in February. All across America, millions of Republicans and conservatives shuffle their feet and mumble something about how everyone always knew it was going to happen and try to drink enough to forget the other candidates they backed. In an ironic twist, the sudden surge in alcohol sales provides a jolt to the economy, lowering unemployment by two tenths of a percent and boosting Obama’s approval rating back to 48%.

2. Mitt selects Marco Rubio as his running mate and goes on to be elected President of the United States. But it’s a much closer election than many think, nearly as close as the 2000 race, and comes down to the final vote count in Ohio. We don’t find out the eventual winner until it is decided by the Supreme Court. Unable to bear the specter of reliving the nightmare all over again, Senator Al Franken falls into a fit of despair, flies to Cleveland and sets himself on fire like that fruit vendor guy who started the Arab Spring.

3. The GOP takes the majority in the Senate, but don’t come anywhere near 60 seats so the chamber remains effectively deadlocked. They retain control of the House, but the DNC runs a devastatingly effective mediscare campaign in close districts across the nation and pick up a number of seats. The closely divided House includes a number of moderate Republicans, meaning that President Romney doesn’t have any sort of free glide path to implement whatever he wants. Gridlock continues and the popularity of Congress finally reaches the statistical margin of error at 3%.

4. John Boehner retains his speakership to the annoyance of pundits everywhere who predicted that Eric Cantor would have put a lethal dose of Ex-Lax in his chocolate Easter Bunny by then. In an unrelated story, Nancy Pelosi misses several weeks of the Spring session due to uncontrollable diarrhea.

5. Twenty years too late, in March, we finally get cost effective, mass produced flying cars. Unfortunately, the TSA immediately places so many restrictions on getting into one that most people throw up their hands in frustration and go back to driving their SUVs. A few finally do get hold of them by August, though. The following day the GEICO Gecko is killed while filming their first flying car insurance advertisement when the AFLAC duck gets sucked into his car’s engine. Ironically, the flaming wreckage crashes into the State Farm HQ building, burning it to the ground. Conspiracy theories mount when a YouTube video of the incident shows that annoying woman named Flo from Progressive’s ads chuckling evilly near the crash site.

6. New, stricter immigration laws survive all court challenges and go into effect in every state which passed them. In a related story, McDonald’s moves the Big Mac to the dollar menu. Unless you want it with tomato. In which case it’s $11.99

7. Yet another Must-Have smart phone will be released… precisely two days after you finally break down and buy the current one. It incorporates all the functions of the Kindle so you can now read books on it as well. Related: Chris Matthews writes yet another book which none of you download to the new device and virtually nobody reads outside of his immediate family and the staff at MSNBC.

8. Some areas of the Earth will experience dramatic, violent weather, immediately prompting Al Gore to make millions of additional dollars. A series of violent tornadoes surprise everyone by occurring in a place known as “Tornado Ally” which are then blamed on the Keystone XL pipeline, even though construction has still not begun on it. Obama immediately cancels Keystone XL yet again, gaining a three point bump in popularity among self described “Eco-warriors.”

9. The date of the Mayan apocalypse in December will come and go. The families of suicide cult members will scramble to think up less embarrassing things to write on their grave markers. Unlike Harold Camping, however, the Mayans do not reappear to move the date back to March of 2013.

10. Hot Air will hire Rick Perry as a guest blogger after changing its name officially to Hot Gas, and remains the most highly trafficked, popular conservative blog on the planet.

Blowback

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I predict the majority of Americans will not hear a Christmas song on the radio for the first 9 months of the year. I also predict the media will find something very interesting to report concerning the USPS being bombarded with mail on the evening of April 15. Funny, these are the same predictions I had last year and they proved 100% accurate. What are the chances I’m right again? :-)

The Supreme Court upholds the mandate by a 6-3 vote, issues a mixed decision on the Arizona immigration law (i.e., affirms parts of the 9th Circuit’s decision but reverses others), and sides with Republicans in the Texas redistricting case. It grants cert in at least one case involving same-sex marriage, but due to the timing, no decision will be handed down until June 2013.

Technology:

Tablets do better than ever. Apple continues to dominate.

Due to extremely poor sales, Sony ends the Playstation Vita and gets out of the handheld game market. Focuses its game-related resources on the PS4 which it will announce at E3.

Microsoft announces the next Xbox with a surprisingly soon release in the fall/winter.

Nintendo’s 3DS sees good sales. It renames its planned Wii U due to the name being too confusing to consumers.

1. The Hobbit will be the best of the Tolkien-based movies and Peter Jackson will win more Oscars.
2. There will be a massive defection from Cable to other platforms for home entertainment.
3. There will be a brokered convention and someone not even on the radar screen at present will be the Republican nominee.
4. The Republicans take the House and Senate but won’t know what to do with them.
5. Obama will lose the presidency but will become the Secretary General of the UN thereby cementing Bill Clinton’s dislike of him.

2. AP has a religious experience that permanently changes him into a magnificent Theist, resulting in (1) Temporary and abject penury, having become utterly unfitted to “Foil” and “Bait” and thereby losing his lucrative situation at Hot Air, and (2) an eventual bus tour of the South, where he tearfully pleads for persons to read their Bibles from a massive green bus with his face painted on the side, lit by a ray of sunshine. License plate: AP316.

Romney will win. Obama will not concede, and will call for violent revolution to restore his regime. It will be “on”.

I have three witnesses that heard me predict the US would be drawn into war in the middle east and that the conflict would occur here as well. That prediction occurred on the evening of Sept 10th 2001.

1. Alabama wins the National Championship. The SEC haters will continue to hate.

Roll Tide! When I lived in BAMA or LA; my boss was a huge Alabama fan. He went there for college, but his wife went to Auburn. They had a house divided. He is probably the reason that I started to watch football and love it. He quizzed me on who Bear Bryant was? As a northerner and a woman, I had no idea. It was sacrilege. Needless to say, I got really into college football when I was down there, and even moving am a HUGE BAMA fan!

I predict that Barack Hussein Obama will follow in LBJ’s footsteps and BOW OUT of the race some time during the primary season. Johnson dropped out after the NH primary in 1968, so Obama can be expected to try to best that by waiting until Summer to shatter the psyches of his devoted drones. He will drop out because his ego is too large to accept the likelihood that Romney will beat him like a drum in November 2012.

In all the Hot Air POTUS preference surveys this year I have been writing Petraeus in as my favorite wildcard.

If he is not the nominee (which he wont be barring a miracle for the history books), I dont want him as Veep though. He’s a war-fighter, not a cutter of plant ribbons or muncher of state fair oddities.

If I am the next GOP President, I ask Gen. Dave to stick around somewhere in any warfighting position he wants for as long as there’s fight in him.
But I wouldnt add him to my ticket, make him resign from the CIA in the middle of a global fight then handcuff him at OVP. That would be like assigning Mark Clark or WT Sherman to watch over a gilded ration train, as in Not.A.Good.Idea.

If Romney is the nominee I think a good VP choice would be a verifiably conservative member of the house or Senate, whip smart, new media savvy, has integrity & foreign policy chops, knows how deep in the shit we are, and will at all times…in a statesmanlike manner…take no crap ever from lazy droning biased clay-brained media tools. Ever.

I can think of a bunch of people who fit this description to a T.
None of them are current candidates, btwfwiw.

I say Congresscritter because I’d like to have some liaison to the Hill and a respected fairly long standing conservative stalwart (there are many of them) who can deliver a swing state.
Governors are OK but the point is to have a solid comms channel to Congress with this pick.

and imo it ought to be a veteran but not a careerist or even a rookie superstar like you-know-who. Promising GOP diaper dandies all around the country are just now stepping into power in Congress and governorships. Lets allow them time to grow a little and not repeat The Obama Mistake. I am excited about GOP Presidential prospects in 2016 and beyond.

Long way around the barn to say “Petraeus brokered convention nominee Yes. Petraeus as VP to GOP nominee, No.”

A semi-celebrity, famous mainly for being famous, will suffer a setback in their recovery from alcohol/drug addiction, and be sent back to jail for a short stay before re-entering rehab.

The mainstream media will fight mightily to re-inflict their greatest negligence and malfeasance upon the electorate by conspiring to manufacture a controversy surrounding the Republican presidential nominee while ignoring the mass corruption of the Obama administration; but will lose in the end, blaming Obama’s political demise on the stupidity of the bitter clingers in flyover country.

Rupert Murdoch, chastened by his brush with ruination, will dedicate himself to the cause of Journalism in its highest form, establishing a university in his own name, and offering scholarships to the brightest students, on the condition that they swear an oath to honest reportage.

The Disney Studios, in cooperation with GE, will make a major medical breakthrough, launching a new industry in bionic robotics, based upon their success in re-animating Nancy Pelosi’s face.

Beyond anyone’s ability to imagine, Ed Schultz will become even fatter, angrier, more dishonest, and somehow stupider, thus burnishing his image with MSNBC brass, and garnering a raise, even as MSNBC files for bankruptcy. The bankruptcy court will seize his wages as illegal insider payments made for no return value.

Sarah Palin wins nomination in a brokered convention, she then chooses Marco Rubio as vip. She wins election 56 states to one. The 4 loonies on the supreme court resign over health care being declared unconstitutional. Palin then names Levin, and Ann Colter , and in a surprise move, David Limbaugh. They sale through the senate as the Republicans have a 61 to 39 advantage. The new speaker of the house, Alan West, gets 204 of the 265 votes from the house Republicans. The New attorney general Rush Limbaugh, indicts Obama and Holder on treason charges, they are then found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. All in all a good year for Conservatives.

1. The Hobbit will be the best of the Tolkien-based movies and Peter Jackson will win more Oscars.
2. There will be a massive defection from Cable to other platforms for home entertainment.
3. There will be a brokered convention and someone not even on the radar screen at present will be the Republican nominee.
4. The Republicans take the House and Senate but won’t know what to do with them.
5. Obama will lose the presidency but will become the Secretary General of the UN thereby cementing Bill Clinton’s dislike of him.

I’m going to go get started on the thing. I’ve got a habit of doing something to set the tone tonight — I know it’s pointless, sentimental, whatever — but I need to get on it. Usually it’s working, or writing, or even praying, or whatever I want to find myself doing this year, whatever wall needs shoring up.

Soberest day of the year for me :)

Too much info — sorry — point is I’m out of here, and I hope all your 2012′s embarrass all your 2011′s and make them all look small and stupid and full of themselves.

About fifteen years ago, I was BIG into listening to the local two-meter repeaters in my area (by way of scanner, lots of very candid conversation on that band), and at that time there was grumbling by some of the “old-timers” about the limited no-code license.
Are you saying that ‘CW’ has now been altogether eliminated from ammeture radio? Or is it just for the beginners license, that it has been removed as a requirement?
I’ve been out-of-touch with it for about eight years now, so any recent changes would have been missed by me.

McDonald’s adds a slice of tomato to the Big Mac. The additional acidity makes hundreds of thousands puke their guts, and the chain collapses, as no one will buy anything but one dollar McChicken and small drinks.

5. Holder will be thrown under the bus for Fast and Furious so that Obama can attempt to deflect the scandal before his reelection campaign.

6. The Occupy movement will turn on Obama and try to recreate 68 at the Democrat convention. This will in turn cause the media to turn on OWS.

7. Boehner will not be Speaker of the house after 2012. Republicans will hold both house of congress by slight margins. Bachmann and Ron Paul will both lose reelection.

8. TV and entertainment will continue to migrate to streaming internet services marking the beginning of the end of Cable and Satellite. Apple TV and Roku will continue to grow in popularity prompting Microsoft to introduce their version using the Zune marketplace.

9. The next X-Box and PS4 will be announced in 2012, and will launch in 2013. The Wii U will cost Nintendo money and the 3DS will continue to flop leading to Nintendo’s exit of the hardware market in 2013. The iPad will become the number one mobile gaming platform.

10. Blackberry will go under and Windows Mobile devices will grow in popularity. Microsoft will attempt to buy out Google in order to thin out competition.

The EU financial crisis will come to a head when bankers figure out that the bonds guaranteeing their solvency are bogus. This will trigger worldwide depression and total market collapse. We will be thrust into worldwide depression, and inflation will make living even a modest lifestyle impossible. Unemployment will reach 50%

Oh, and Obama will win in a landslide, the Senate and House will be overwhelmingly Democrat controlled. Hotair.com will be banned from the internet by the newly created Internet Decency Act in the third quarter.

The Wii U will cost Nintendo money and the 3DS will continue to flop leading to Nintendo’s exit of the hardware market in 2013.

I’m sorry, but this is just wrong. The 3DS has been doing quite well the past few months and has exploded in Japan. If you’d like, I can give you the weekly Media Create numbers which prove this. The Wii U may turn out to be a flop and cause the company serious damage, but Nintendo has corrected its 3DS error by slashing the price, securing third parties games like the Monster Hunter series, and releasing its usual stable of first party games. Whatever happens with the Wii U, Nintendo will stick with the 3DS for several more years.

5. Holder will be thrown under the bus for Fast and Furious so that Obama can attempt to deflect the scandal before his reelection campaign.

6. The Occupy movement will turn on Obama and try to recreate 68 at the Democrat convention. This will in turn cause the media to turn on OWS.

7. Boehner will not be Speaker of the house after 2012. Republicans will hold both house of congress by slight margins. Bachmann and Ron Paul will both lose reelection.

ManFromNowhere on December 31, 2011 at 9:33 PM

Awesome predictions! I like everything you said above except for Bachmann not winning reelection. Regardless of how people personally feel about her, we need more principled conservatives like her in the House.

I’ve only completely read through page 1 so far, but I believe that you and I are the only two who have predicted a Santorum presidency. It sure would be nice wouldn’t it? And many will think it’s unlikey, but it could happen. If he wins or does really well in Iowa, conservatives will get behind him to stop Mittens.

And an orange juice can can and will beat Maobama.

I’m optimistic about the Supreme Court striking down Obamacare. Very nervous about it having it all come down to Antonin Kennedy. If he has any understanding of the Constitution at all he will have to strike down Obamacare.

I’m less opmtimistic about Boehner being replaced as Speaker. I’d love to see it happen as he’s exactly what’s wrong with the GOP, but I don’t have alot of faith in the party to allow it to happen.

Sarah Palin wins nomination in a brokered convention, she then chooses Marco Rubio as vip. She wins election 56 states to one. The 4 loonies on the supreme court resign over health care being declared unconstitutional. Palin then names Levin, and Ann Colter , and in a surprise move, David Limbaugh. They sale through the senate as the Republicans have a 61 to 39 advantage. The new speaker of the house, Alan West, gets 204 of the 265 votes from the house Republicans. The New attorney general Rush Limbaugh, indicts Obama and Holder on treason charges, they are then found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. All in all a good year for Conservatives.

I’m sorry, but this is just wrong. The 3DS has been doing quite well the past few months and has exploded in Japan. If you’d like, I can give you the weekly Media Create numbers which prove this. The Wii U may turn out to be a flop and cause the company serious damage, but Nintendo has corrected its 3DS error by slashing the price, securing third parties games like the Monster Hunter series, and releasing its usual stable of first party games. Whatever happens with the Wii U, Nintendo will stick with the 3DS for several more years.

I find it hard to believe that it is doing well in the US. I can understand it doing well in Japan where brand loyalty is a huge factor (that is what tanked the 360 over there after all), but in the US? I work in retail electronics and we didn’t sell a single 3DS over the holiday season. All of the other consoles did well and Apple products were in the usual high demand but the the 3DS was basically a paperweight.

*Looks at the sales figures*

Huh, color me shocked. When did that system get popular?

Lets replace that part of the prediction with this then:

The Playstation Vita will fail hard marking Sony’s exit from the handheld game market.

“They’re saying in the election what’s going to surprise many is that a lot of those Republicans that were voted in … will be voted out,” Monroe said.

But then it takes a turn for the absurd

* The American economy will improve, and job security will increase.

* Moods will improve, both nationally and worldwide.

“Everything is going to change. Basically on a global scale we will start looking at things in a positive way,” Monroe said. “What the Mayans said as the end of the world is the end of the world as (far as) nations having to beat each other (to be) No. 1.”

God gives the US a miracle and the Republican nominee (whoever he is) defeats Obummer.

Obummer refuses to leave the White House. Chief Justice John Roberts swears in the new president at 12 noon on January 20, 2013 anyway.

The new president orders the military to remove Obummer, his family, and all his possessions from the White House. The military is successful in this mission and Obummer is hauled away to jail. The new Attorney General has charges against Obummer ready to go the minute the new Republican president is sworn in.

The US is thus given a chance to try to turn the country around before we go over the cliff.

Over the last three years about 20% of the country learned that the good old days are behind them. I predict in 2012 another 75% will join them. Hope I’m wrong but don’t think so. God Bless our troops and Happy New Year!!!

That will secure Obamacare, and it will mark the end of American Exceptionalism. The end of Pax Americana that will necessarily follow the end of American Exceptionalism will return the world to the chaos that preceded it (1914-1945), but with Earth shattering weapons wildly proliferating around the globe.

Sarah Palin wins nomination in a brokered convention, she then chooses Marco Rubio as vip. She wins election 56 states to one. The 4 loonies on the supreme court resign over health care being declared unconstitutional. Palin then names Levin, and Ann Colter , and in a surprise move, David Limbaugh. They sale through the senate as the Republicans have a 61 to 39 advantage. The new speaker of the house, Alan West, gets 204 of the 265 votes from the house Republicans. The New attorney general Rush Limbaugh, indicts Obama and Holder on treason charges, they are then found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. All in all a good year for Conservatives.

Bwahahahahaha! If Obama’s re-elected and the freshman GOP aren’t, then this:

* The American economy will improve, and job security will increase.
* Moods will improve, both nationally and world

Will NEVER happen! Who knew psychics were stand-up comedians? I think this one missed her true calling. They should’ve hired Shawn Spencer and Burton Guster instead — they’d have gotten much better guesses ;)

I have never seen so many pessimists on one site in my life. All the people who predict an Obama victory are Eeyores at best..quit staring at your navels and get out and promote something positive. If it means voting for Romney, so be it..no where on this earth is he as bad as Obama… My God, Ed, if opening up registration means all this negativity, I’ll stay at work 18 hrs a day, so I don’t have to read this drivel..

Scalia’s vote to uphold, consistent with his previous commerce-clause thinking, will mute a lot of the howling,

Hahahah. No way would that mute a lot of the howling. If anything that would help split the tea party off from the GOP. It would be the final proof that Scalia is a statist, just a conservative/traditional leaning one.

1. 6-3 vote on Obamacare – Scalia and Kennedy will vote to uphold.
2. France will undergo a “muslim Spring.”
3. Obama will go golfing 1,678 times.
4. Moochelle will pack on another 40 lbs. while continuing her attempt to outlaw Mickey D’s.
5. Obama will pick Clinton as his VP, but it will be Bill, not Hillary. Bill will ask for super-security protection and a secret office site.
6. As unemployment benefits are continuously extended, the robust economic recovery will continue unabated.
7. Seventeen different MSNBC, CNN, and ABCCBSNBC journalists will be treated at the Mayo Clinic for severe knee burns.
8. Peggy Noonan will be arrested for stalking Jon Huntsman and sending him “revealing” emails.
9. A Hot Air poster will post “Sarah Palin is a nice person” which will be followed by 1,467 posts calling her a “dumb quitter.”
10. The world will end at 3:29 P.M. EST on December 21, 2012.

1. Barack Obama misses the State of the Union speech due to a vacation scheduling conflict. John McCain gives the Republican response.

2. Stupidquotes.com server crashes from lack of bandwidth after adding Sheila Jackson-Lee as a contributor.

3. Michelle Obama hires John Edwards to file a class action lawsuit against anyone giving McDonald’s gift cards on the day the White House calls “the anonymous holiday between December 24 and 26.” Edwards turns the case down after his investigators find hay bales in her closet. That, and his being disbarred en route to prison.

4. Elena Kagan recuses herself from every SCOTUS case due to her realization that she is unqualified to do much more than fetch coffee, and maybe a Frisbee or two.

5. GM appeals to nostalgia buffs, remaking the Chevette with the addition of a 50 mile extension cord, and calling it the Chevolt. GM engineers realize the lack of feasibility of the extension cord, and improve the design by instead adding a wrecker to the front of it. The slogan, “It’s Chevolting” doesn’t catch on.

6. Les Miles makes it three in a row over Nick Saban. Alabama fans keep trying to convince the world that they keep beating themselves, and it’s merely coincidence that LSU is on the same field when they keep losing.

7. At the end of October, unemployment will be 2%. The White House chef is carbon twelving the numbers as we speak, to be delivered to the LSM on a shingle. Expect a large upward “unexpected” adjustment to the % in the Friday night dump three days after the election, and a picture of the redhead on her cell phone on the Hot Air home page the next day.

8. Michelle Obama gets rave reviews from the LSM for her latest $2,000 outfit. In a related story, the Pizza Hut closest to the White House is missing four tablecloths.

9. To court the illegal alien vote, Obama uses the empty space from the returned Churchill bust for a bust of Pancho Villa, which he dedicates in a formal ceremony on Cinco de Quatro.

10. Obama’s convention acceptance speech: “I Me I me I me I me Bush I me I me I me I me Bush I me I me I me I me Bush I me I me I me I me . . . ”

11. During the debates, Obama reminds the world of a rare time he was correct. August 11, 2009: “UPS and FedEx are doing just fine, right? It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems.” TOTUS does a face palm.

12. Biden and Obama finish 2nd and 3rd respectively in a Politician Jeopardy contest with Alvin Greene. Biden’s high point was sweeping the “Gaffes” category, whereas Obama was a whirlwind on “Words That Start With ‘Uh’.”

The end of the paper book as we know it is in sight. People will buy books as collector’s items, like some people still buy vinyl records. They rhapsodize over the book smell–whatever the heck that is. For reading entertainment, for textbooks, it will be digital.

vityas on December 31, 2011 at 5:38 PM

I’ve been hearing that one since about 2000. I think books are here to stay.

Sarah Palin jumps in race after VA AG adds her to the ballot.
Repubs add to the house but don’t get to 60 in the senate.
LSU beats Ala for NC after lousy calls by ref.
Boehner is ousted as speaker by West.
Tebow leads Broncos to SB.

millions of Republicans and conservatives shuffle their feet and mumble something about how everyone always knew it was going to happen and try to drink enough to forget the other candidates candidate they have to backed.

So how many of those pundits predictions for 2011 pan out? Now that’s a ‘news article’ I’d like to see. Along with pictures of their red faces.

GarandFan on December 31, 2011 at 5:57 PM

Gregg Easterbrook, author of TMQ on ESPN.com, is the only writer I know who actually saves, tracks, and reports how horribly bad football people we are supposed to be in awe of are at predicting anything.

I have no problem projecting that onto any other aspect of media…the people we apparently respect as knowledgeable are just morons with as much insight as you and me, maybe less.

Unable to bear the specter of reliving the nightmare all over again, Senator Al Franken falls into a fit of despair, flies to Cleveland and sets himself on fire like that fruit vendor guy who started the Arab Spring.

This guy makes some very good predictions, most of them serious. My fave is the last one, with tongue firmly in cheek:

On December 21, 2012, the universe will end when the Mayan god Kukulkan descends from the heavens and decrees an end to all existence. Unfortunately for Kukulkan, he arrives in the middle of a Lady Gaga concert, where a blood-soaked feathered serpent would attract little notice. Disgusted by everything, he figures that non-existence would actually be better than what we have, so he ascends back up into the heaven and has a few too many glasses of wine with Zeus and Thor as they complain that no one actually believes in them any more.

AND, in a deathbed confession, wishing to make known his historical role is making the son-of-his-archenemy’s-father-turned-secret-erstwhile-protege the president, reveals that the reason for the secrecy over 0bama’s birth certificate, and the reason he was shuttled to Indonesia for safekeeping, is that his true father was actually a man named Malcolm Little, who had several encounters with the underage daughters of his Communist fellow travelers, during his speaking tours across America.

I’ve been hearing that one since about 2000. I think books are here to stay.

ddrintn on January 1, 2012 at 8:49 AM

Unfortunately, they’re not. The prediction was a decade too early but it’s starting to come to pass. Within a month or two there will be no notable used-book stores in my entire homecity that aren’t part of some big company. And even some of those are dying, as witness Borders.

A UFO lands on White House lawn in the view of thousands, Napolitano denies it happened saying it was mass hysteria. Obama comes up missing, no one seems to care, except Reggie Love. Farrakhan claims it was the “mothership” and disappointed he was left behind. President elect Palin declares the disappearance to be unimportant, and the World agrees.